The chief priests and Pharisees therefore gathered a council. If a formal meeting of the great council, if "the Sanhedrin," had been summoned, the article would have been used. (On the Sanhedrin, see Winer, art.
"Sanhedrin," in his 'Bib. R. Wort.;' Lange, in loc.; Edersheim, vol. 2:553, etc. This name is Greek (though Hebraized in the Talmud), and signifies the supreme court of the people, resident in Jerusalem, consisting of seventy-one members, with a president, Nasi, and a vice-president, Ab-baith-den.
) Extraordinary sessions of the Sanhedrin were called at the house of the high priest, but ordinary sessions in some rooms adjoining the temple. The points submitted to their cognizance were hierarchical and religious.
They had at this time lost their actual power of inflicting capital punishment. They were a court of appeal from lower courts in the province, framed after the same model. Pharisees and Sadducees were alike to be found in their number.
The family of Annas, his sons, and his son-in-law Caiaphas, were all Sadducees, and embraced the priestly part of the assembly. They were the most deadly enemies of Christ throughout. The Pharisees are scarcely again mentioned in the account of the Passion.
The priestly Sadducean party became also bitter enemies of Christianity and of the Church during apostolic times. Here they take the initiative. And they said, What are we about? because this Man is (as we must admit) doing many signs, which will produce a perilous effect among the people.
There were certain aspects and views both of the Pharisaic and Sadducean party with which our Lord's teaching coincided. When he denounced ritualism, literalism, and tradition, and laid emphasis on moral law, he had to some extent the ear of the Sadducees; when he cleansed the temple of the priestly bazaar, when he rebuked the secular conceptions of Messianic glory, the Pharisees inwardly rejoiced.
Nevertheless, they had both too many g-rounds of criticism and dislike not to combine against him. The council of the nation found it a delicate and difficult task to frame charges in which the entire authorities of the nation and the popular clamor could coincide.